


Breakfast Belonging

by bran4ever



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Bacon, Fandom Writing Challenge, February 2017, Food, Gen, Insecurity, Misunderstandings, Multi, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Worth Issues, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-01
Updated: 2017-03-01
Packaged: 2018-09-27 15:13:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10027535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bran4ever/pseuds/bran4ever
Summary: Tony sleeps in their bed at night. But he never stays for breakfast. This makes Clint, Phil, and Natasha feel like they don't matter to him. So why is Tony so wary about staying with them for their morning routine?





	

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written for the Fandom Writing Challenge for February 2017 prompt: food and drink. The prompt I was given was "bacon". 
> 
> You can find the Fandom Writing Challenge blog on tumblr here: https://fandomwritingchallenge.tumblr.com/
> 
> Many, many thanks to writinfreak, without whom this story may never have been finished. And even if it had been, it wouldn't have made half as much sense. You can find her here: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writinfreak/pseuds/writinfreak
> 
> Trigger warnings can be found in the end notes.

Tony didn’t sleep right when he was alone. None of them did. They never announced it, but if someone needed to find Tony after he’d set aside his projects and left his lab for the night (and Jarvis wouldn’t break confidence), he was likely going to be with the S.H.I.E.L.D agents, tucked between them as they slept.

But Tony never stayed for breakfast.

***

Clint woke when the bed shifted. He didn’t move. Even with hearing aides removed, he knew who moved. The gun callouses of Phil’s left hand rested against Clint’s bare shoulder. Natasha’s hair lay across his bow hand. Phil’s thumb drew circles against his skin before stilling. They lay awake, never alerting their fourth member as he slipped out; Tony believed himself unnoticed. 

It was the same every night Tony stayed. Sometime between four and four-thirty, he slipped out of bed and went - Well, Clint didn’t actually know where he went. When Natasha and Clint conspired to put him in the middle (it wasn’t hard - Natasha needed an open side, and Phil needed fast access to his gun), he slunk off the end of the bed. 

Tony had to know he woke them; he was too intelligent to believe the “assassin twins” and “Agent Agent” could sleep through him moving around in their room, much less on their bed. So, Clint guessed he wanted to avoid mornings after badly enough he that he carelessly interrupted their sleep, risking their ire. Clint had thought someone would die that first night, when he’d snapped awake to find Natasha stiff and barely breathing, Phil with his hand on the gun kept in the nightstand. Phil signed that all was well. Clint then turned over to watch Tony leave, face pointed at an angle Clint couldn’t read. 

The next morning, the three of them had decided to let Tony’s escape go with comment. No one wanted Tony cope with his trauma alone. He had no training to explain to him how often battles, physical and verbal, could leave deeper scars beyond just physical. His blatant disregard for managing his anxiety was testimony to that. Sleep derived Tony was miserable and this thing between them seemed to help.

Clint had begun to think Tony just wanted warm bodies to sleep against, and he just didn’t like them enough to be around them when it wasn’t necessary. 

***

Movie night was either the best night or the worst night in Avengers tower, if you asked Clint. Action flicks were fun; comedies were a great way to relax. No one could really like The Sound of Music, though. Musicals made no sense. 

“Hey J, did the cleaning crew change products or something?”

“No, Mister Barton, I don’t believe they have. Is something bothering you?”

“My eyes are itchy and watery, I dunno, I guess maybe I got dust in them while I was on the roof.”

Natasha rolled her eyes and kicked him in the thigh. “Ow! Dammit, Natasha! What was that for?!”

She didn’t answer, just tucked her pain-dealing foot back under his leg. On his other side, Phil kissed his hair, prompting Clint to turn his neck and side-eye him. 

“Honestly, I don’t know why anyone makes a musical,” Tony moaned. “It’s not funny; it’s not exciting; it’s not even realistic!” 

“Exactly!” Clint shouted. 

“Tony, if you don’t want to watch the ending, you can go somewhere else.”

“No, Bruce, it’s Movie Night.” Clint heard the capital letters in Steve’s tone. 

“Ugh.” Tony flopped back from where he was seated on the floor and slumped against Clint’s legs. 

“It’s okay, Tones; I know how you feel.” Clint smeared more water out of the corner of his eye. 

Bruce shook his head and curled up more in his armchair. Steve, seated in front of Natasha, passed the popcorn to Tony.

“It’s only... “ he picked up the remote and checked the time remaining on the movie, “...an hour longer.” 

Tony moaned and rolled over to hide his face in Clint’s legs. “Movie night is stupid. Why do we have movie night?”

“Because you wanted everyone to watch Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” Phil answered.

Clint grinned and ruan his hand through Tony’s hair. 

“It’s okay, man. It’s my turn to pick next week!”

Natasha gave Clint the expression she always gave politicians just before expertly manipulating them into voting the way she wanted them to. Clint resigned himself to watching another spy movie. Please, God, not Mission: Impossible again. 

***

Tony had never come to a team breakfast. Everyone else pitched in (even if Natasha just contributed yogurt mixed with other things) but Tony was never there to help.

This morning, Steve made eggs and bacon, and Bruce added pancakes and biscuits. The spread smelled wonderful, and Clint eagerly reached for a plate. Phil expertly steered him toward the silverware drawer. 

“We eat at the table because you are all capable of pretending to be civilized human beings.”

Natasha snuck a slice of bacon off the plate. Clint glared at her.

“Phil, could you take the platters and set them on the dining table?” Bruce asked, as he slid the last of the biscuits into a towel-covered basket.

“Sure.” Phil picked up the biscuits and pancakes. “Clint, set the table,” he called over his shoulder as he walked into the dining area.

Clint rolled his eyes and started picking out silverware. “Six, no five, forks…” he muttered to himself as gathered the utensils together. “Six, no - fuck it.” 

Clint glanced at the ceiling while he dumped the silverware back in the drawer, “J, where’s Tony?”

“Sir is currently occupied in his workshop, Mister Barton.” 

“Well, tell him breakfast is ready.”

“Sir has already had breakfast, Mister Barton.”

“Smoothies don’t count as breakfast if you have them every morning, Jarvis.” Natasha was fed up with Tony’s avoidance, too. 

“Mister Barton, Ms. Romanova, Sir’s nutrition is acceptable at the moment. There is no need to intervene.”

“Like hell, Jarvis!” Clint shouted.

“Clint, calm down.” Steve left the stove where he had just finished scraping out the pan used to cook the eggs and came over to lay a heavy hand on Clint’s shoulder. 

Clint shrugged him off.

“Jarvis, you have to admit it’s a little frustrating that Tony eats the food we cook, but doesn’t help prepare any of it,” Steve continued.

“What?” hissed Natasha.

Steve sighed, and pinched the bridge of his nose. “There are never as many leftover pancakes in the refrigerator at the end of the day as I put away after breakfast,” he admitted.

“This is ridiculous!” Clint flailed around, gesticulating wildly. 

He jerked around to yell at Phil that he just couldn’t take Tony using them anymore - and stopped. 

Phil finished setting the sixth place and stood up straight before turning to look Clint dead in the eye. 

“Go tell him breakfast is ready.”

***

Clint and Natasha walked along the hallway toward the elevator. At the elevator, they stopedp, but the doors didn’t open. 

“Jarvis, we need to go see Tony.”

“I’m sorry, Ms. Romanova, but Sir is busy.” 

“Jarvis! Fuck this! This is ridiculous!” Clint could feel himself spiraling out of control, but was completely justified.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Barton, but Sir has asked not to be disturbed at this time.” 

Clint registered somewhere that Jarvis sounded less resigned than he usually did when Tony was being ridiculous. Natasha, though, stiffened and turned to Clint. 

“What?” he spat at her.

She barely deigned him with a derisive look before she turned away from the elevator.

“”Tasha?! The fuck?! ‘Tasha, where are you going? AHH!!” Clint slammed his palm on the doors of the elevator. He rested his head on his forearm, pressed against the elevator. Slumped, he closed his eyes and tried to remember how to breathe. He felt like someone slammed their fist into his solar plexus. Why didn’t Tony just tell them he doesn’t like them? Phil, Natasha, and Clint would still sleep with him. They probably wouldn’t all pile into the bed, anymore, but someone would stay with him so he could sleep. 

It was the pretending that bothered Clint so much. Tony joked with them during movie night and made time to get their input on new gadgets, but when there was no distraction around, he was nowhere to be found. Sitting at the breakfast table would require Tony to actually converse with the rest of the team.

***

The lights shifted and the bedroom door opened. Clint almost didn’t want to look, but he did.

Tony stepped inside and shut the door behind him. In the low light from the clock on the nightstand, Clint watched him strip to his boxers, then grab a t-shirt from the drawer Clint knew had collected the shirts Tony leaves in their room and Phil makes sure get folded and put away.

Clint really didn’t want to go through this again.

Every night Tony crawled into their bed and curled up with his nose in Clint’s shoulder and Natasha’s hand in his hair, every night he let Phil wipe down his grease-streaked face and let them see the light of the arc reactor through his thin bed shirt, Clint thought, maybe, just maybe he would stay long enough for them to show him they wouldn’t expect him to be perfectly put together and in control when he woke up. 

Clint would bet Tony didn’t know Phil can’t string five words together before he’s had coffee. Clint would bet Tony doesn’t know Natasha’s hair is frizzy before she smoothes it down in the mornings. Clint knew Tony had never needed to write words on Clint’s skin because his aides were out and his eyes were still blurry from sleeping. 

He wouldn’t find out any of these things tonight, either. The light from the living area fell away as the door shut behind Tony. Clint raised his head to check the clock. 4:15am.

***

They’ve never asked him to leave. 

Clint saw how Phil’s eyes pinch when he got up in the morning to see the space between Clint and Natasha. Natasha cut onion for the omelets, and when she moved the knife, Clint saw the slices left deep in the wood cutting board where she used more force than the highly-sharpened edge required. 

Clint sighed soundlessly.

***

Tony didn’t come to sleep with Clint, Phil, and Natasha for almost two weeks. (It had been thirteen days, not that Clint was counting.) The wrinkle between Phil’s eyes that smoothed out when he moved into Avenger’s tower with Clint and Natasha reappeared.

Clint and Phil went up the common floor for team breakfast while Natasha took a shower after her workout.

“Hey Phil, do you know if Tony got any sleep last night?” Steve called, offhand, from his position at the bacon pan; he thought he was being subtle, but he wasn’t. 

A pan clattered against the electric burner from the other side of the stove, and Bruce turned around and smiled sheepishly at the group.

“Sorry, I slipped. The crepes will be ready in just a moment.”

“Thanks, Bruce,” Phil said, and turned to Steve. “Ask Jarvis.” He walked toward the silverware drawer.

Clint winced. It was never a good sign when Phil got short with people. 

Steve took a deep breath, and Clint made an apologetic face at him. They were all worried about Tony, who missed Movie Night last week, (Natasha made Clint pick Mission: Impossible again) and has seemed out of sorts the entire week.

“I’m concerned he won’t be able to function as Iron Man if this continues,” sighed Steve.

“I’m quite certain Sir will be competent, should the need arise,” Jarvis interjected sharply.

Clint and Steve jerked, chastised. 

“All right, Jarvis. I’m just worried about Tony,” Steve placated.

Personally, Clint thought Steve wasn’t doing anyone any favors by misrepresenting the situation. They were all worried about Tony being able to fight, but worse, they were worried Tony was going to decide he was finished with them and stop being part of the team, except for call-outs. 

Clint shook his head, disgusted how much he cared, and turned to help carry food to the table. 

Steve turned back to the burner he was using and threw the last of the bacon in the pan. Natasha walked in, her damp hair curling in the warm air from the cooking, and helped Phil set out plates and cups. 

Bruce brought over the finished crepes with a selection of jams and fresh fruit to go with them.

“Go ahead and start, guys, I’ll bring over the rest of the bacon when it’s finished.”

Clint, Natasha, Phil, and Bruce sat down and started plating their food. Clint took blueberries with his crepes, put ketchup on his scrambled eggs, and left an open section of plate for bacon.

The elevator dinged, and everyone at the table froze. At the stove, Steve was distracted while he took finished bacon out of the pan.

Down the hall, everyone at the table listened to feet scuffing on the carpet. 

“J, send the updated plans for the new StarkPhone to Pepper and let her know if they come back with red writing all over them again, I’ll send out an update to all the existing phones saying Stark Industries is discontinuing the StarkPhone line.”

“As you wish, Sir.” Jarvis sounded disapproving. 

Clint thought Tony should hold his ground on what work he needed to be focusing on more often. Then he thought, uncharitably, that Tony should also stay out of team breakfast if he had decided he didn’t like any of his team mates.

Tony walked through the kitchen, distracted, his hair was standing up and his clothes were covered in what Clint tentatively identified as hydraulic fluid. He pulled out a huge coffee mug and poured himself a cup of the freshly-brewed coffee Steve always made to Phil’s taste - Clint thought Phil couldn’t taste tar-flavor anymore.

Tony turned around, mug to his lips, fingers of his other hand flying over his phone - and ran right into Steve, who was carrying the plate of bacon over to the dining table. 

Clint saw it all happen and was barely out of his seat before Phil got to Tony’s side and was trying to pull his coffee-soaked shirt off him. Tony failed, eyes drawn to the mess on the floor where spilled coffee covered ruined bacon. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Clint saw Bruce gingerly get up from the table and reach for the paper towels beside the stove. Natasha started picking up the pieces of the broken plate Steve dropped. 

“Tony! Jesus, are you okay?!” Steve was freaking out, and he joined Phil in trying to wrestle Tony out of his shirt. 

“Tony, calm down, we’ll get it off you,” Phil gentled as Tony continued scrambling away from the mess.

“I- What were you- When did- J, what time is it?”

“It is 10am Saturday morning, Sir.”

“Oh. I- What?” Tony continued babbling and Steve cautiously walked closer to where he had backed into the corner of the kitchen between the cabinets below the stove and the dishwasher. 

“No, Steve, man, aren’t you supposed to be a super soldier? Where were your super soldier reflexes, huh?” Tony was still breathing too quickly and he couldn’t take his eyes off the mess on the floor, but he was back to his flippant self. 

Clint couldn’t take it.

Natasha got there first.

“We were all sitting at the table, and I imagine Steve didn’t expect you to be in the kitchen, since you’ve never come to a team breakfast.” Natasha’s tone was bland, but her words were sharp.

Tony seemed to barely hear the dart. He continued staring at the ruined food on floor and murmured plaintively, “Who ordered bacon?”

Clint looked around in confusion at the others; they all looked confused, too. What in the world was Tony talking about, Clint wondered. 

The thought was pushed aside as Tony scrambled to his feet and pushed past Steve, who was too shaken and confused to stop him. 

“Excuse me,” Tony muttered, as he scurried out of the kitchen and down the hall to the elevator. 

Clint was frozen in his spot, but Natasha cursed and raced after Tony. Clint heard cursing in Russian as the door shut before she could reach Tony.

Everyone looked confused, but… Phil, though - Clint watched Phil carefully. Phil moved his head back and forth as he surveyed the mess in the kitchen. His eyebrows were furrowed, and his stance shifted as he came to some kind of realization. His shoulders dropped, and his head fell forward. Clint watches as Phil rubbed his forehead tiredly with one hand. 

As Natasha came back in, Bruce started cleaning the spilled coffee and bacon. Steve finally managed to move from his spot in front of the corner where Tony had been cowering.

Clint froze. Cowering. Tony had been cowering. 

He whipped his head around to Phil, who glanced up at him and gave him a worn smile. 

“Jarvis, is Tony safe?” Phil inquired gently.

“Sir is not currently able to operate the heavy machinery in his workshop, Agent.”

“All right. Let us know if he needs anything, please.”

“I will inform you if Sir asks for assistance, Agent,” Jarvis responded, and Phil sighed softly.

“That will have to do, I suppose.”

Clint saw Natasha’s eyes narrow from her position at the table where she was packing away food.

“Phil?”

“I’m not sure, yet. But I’m beginning to think there’s a reason Tony never eats breakfast with any of us,” Phil explained. 

Steve sucked in a breath. 

“What? You think- You think we did something that hurt him?”

“Bacon,” muttered Bruce. “Wasn’t that a weird thing for him to say?”

Bruce did not look up as everyone frowned and glanced at him. Clint shook himself and dropped to his knees to help clean.

***

Occasionally, Clint had the thought that everyone who had every hurt Tony Stark must have been blind and deaf. 

Occasionally, Clint heard a story that made him so angry, he spent more than eight hours on the range following the steady rhythm of _draw-release. (And then Phil said,_ “Enough, Agent Barton,” _and it wasn’t enough, but it was too much.)_

And very, very occasionally, Clint cried.

***

Tony didn’t come out of his workshop that day. He didn’t come out the next day. If not for Jarvis’s regular reassurances that Tony was still in the building, Clint would have thought Tony wasn’t in the tower at all.

Two days after the incident in the kitchen, Clint found Phil crying in the bathroom. 

“Phil?! Phil! What’s wrong?!” Clint rushed to Phil side and pressed his ratty t-shirt and boxer-clad body against Phil’s soft terrycloth robe. Phil’s glasses are laying beside the sink of the vanity, and he’s hunched over the basin, one had pressed over his eyes. 

Phil was shaking slightly, and Clint looked over his shoulder at the door where Natasha had appeared, an apron covering her yoga pants and tank comfort clothes and a pair of tongs still held in her hand.

Clint made a helpless face at Natasha, and she set the tongs down to sign to him. Phil jerked back against Clint, away from Natasha, and Natasha’s face went stoney. Clint, startled and confused, tried to turn Phil to face him so he could try to figure out what was wrong. 

Phil wouldn’t turn, so Clint signed quickly to Natasha that he was going to get his hearing aides, then slid away from Phil and past Natasha to the bedroom. 

He picked up his hearing aides, quickly put them in, and walked swiftly back toward the bathroom where Natasha was warily shifting out of the doorway and Phil hadn’t moved at all. He winced at the soft, pained noises he could hear Phil making.

Snick. 

Clint stopped mid-step. He set his foot down as quietly as possible and stalked back to the door from the bedroom to the main apartment. Inside the master suite, Clint heard Phil’s muffled noises cut off and the tense silence that heralded his and Natasha’s noiseless movement toward the entrance. 

Clint peeked around the doorframe - and sagged in shock.

Clint heard Natasha take a quick breath from directly behind him. Phil cut off another pained noise, and then there was the sound of slow, directed movement as he pulled himself back behind his calm mask.

Clint glanced over his shoulder at his partners, then they strode together out into their apartment to confront their friend.

***

The first thing Clint noticed was this: the bacon was beginning to burn.

The second thing Clint noticed was this: Tony looked like a man facing his execution.

The third thing Clint noticed was this: Phil really objected to the smell of burned bacon.

The fifth thing Clint noticed was - well, he couldn't notice anything else because he was too busy trying to think of how he was going to repair his relationship with Tony.

***

“Sirs, ma’am, the bacon will soon become a fire hazard; please remove it from the stove and dispose of it down the garbage chute. Ventilating room now,” Jarvis said, as the fans in the room cut on. 

Tony flinched.

Phil immediately moved to take the bacon pan off the stove and carry the it toward the garbage chute.

“Phil, that’s salvageable,” Natasha objected. She went to intercept Phil, but a dark look from him stopped her in her tracks.

Clint still watched Tony. Clint hadn’t looked away from Tony from Jarvis made his announcement.

Clint had several realizations, the fourth of which was this: cooking bacon smelled eerily like burning human flesh.

**Author's Note:**

> TW: sense memory, triggering scents, burning human flesh, emotional distress, PTSD
> 
> One character cannot stand the smell of bacon because it smells like burning human flesh. Another character makes this realization.


End file.
